Interfacing Pd with Faust

Interfacing Pd with Faust

Albert Gräf
Dept. of Music Informatics
Interfacing Pd with Faust

// tone.dsp

vol = nentry("vol", 0.3, 0, 10, 0.01); // %

pan = nentry("pan", 0.5, 0, 1, 0.01); // %
freq = nentry("pitch", 440, 20, 20000, 0.01);

// simple sine tone generator

process = osci(freq)*vol : panner(pan);

• Faust programmers:
use Pd as a graphical
test environment
• Pd users: extend Pd
with audio externals
programmed in Faust
(Karplus-Strong etc.)
Interfacing Pd with Faust

// tone.dsp

vol = nentry("vol", 0.3, 0, 10, 0.01); // %

pan
freq
= nentry("pan", 0.5, 0, 1, 0.01); // %
= nentry("pitch", 440, 20, 20000, 0.01);
Why
// simple sine tone generator
Faust?
process = osci(freq)*vol : panner(pan);

• Faust is convenient: high-level functional

programming language
• Faust is powerful: can do lots of things which are
awkward or impossible in Pd
• Faust is fast: sophisticated automatic
optimizations, generates C++ code
• Faust is portable: works with different platforms
and environments, just recompile
Interfacing Pd with Faust

Main Features of Pd/Faust

– automatic mapping of Faust controls
(button, checkbox, nentry,
hslider, vslider; also passive
controls: hbargraph, vbargraph)
– inspection (bang reports all controls)
– control pathnames following Faust
group structure (hgroup, vgroup,
tgroup)
– default active control (mute, bypass)
– faust2pd: automatic gop (“graph on
parent”) patches
Interfacing Pd with Faust

Plain Interface
.dsp source

faust -a
puredata.cpp && c++

.pd_linux plugin

Pd
Interfacing Pd with Faust

Deluxe Interface
.dsp source

faust -xml -a
puredata.cpp && c++

.pd_linux plugin .dsp.xml file

faust2pd

.pd file

Pd
Interfacing Pd with Faust

Pd+Faust +Q pattern = repeat [60,60,choose [63,67]];

repeat X = {X|repeat X};
choose Xs = Xs!rand 0 (#Xs-1);

– Faust only does audio processing

– Q is another functional programming
language tailored for symbolic processing
– Pd/Q external allows Pd control objects
to be implemented in Q
– Pd+Faust+Q = visual patching +
functional programming of sophisticated
audio and control objects
Interfacing Pd with Faust

Where To Get
– Faust (includes Pd interface):
http://faust.grame.fr/ (also Web-based
Faust compiler)
– Q website (many examples, Pd/Q
interface):
http://q-lang.sf.net/examples.html#Pd

Don't miss the Faust Hands On workshop

tomorrow, Sat, 16.00!